Dawn
by Kyra4
Summary: He always looks for her at dawn.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Set about 10 years after the show. I have to give a shout out to Lalaofthealpacas because this whole story is sort of me fanficcing the title of_ her _one-shot, "weary eyes still stray to the horizon". Something about that title just... I couldn't get it out of my mind. So she definitely inspired this fic._

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* * *

He is up well before dawn, sliding out of bed – out from between the light covers, out from beneath the sleeping woman's _arm_ – with care and precision.

He moves gracefully, silently, even in the near-pitch blackness. There was a time, before he'd fully grown into his body, when his movements were not so fluid; a time when he was liable to miss a step, trip over his own feet, feel the sting of a wooden practice sword smacking him full across the backside, accompanied by a peal of high, clear laughter. _Her_ laughter.

But that time is gone, and even thinking about it causes his jaw to clench, hard, in the dark. He is fast and lithe now as he dresses himself by touch alone, collects his few belongings, and feels his way out of the room, his boots dangling from one hand. He will put them on outside; it would be too risky to go clumping down the rickety wooden steps in them. This inn has seen better days; unless lightly trodden, the stairs produce a veritable symphony of creaks and groans.

And in these silent and slumbering hours, this he does not need.

The stable boy is asleep, and that suits Gunther fine. After donning his boots in the dooryard, he finds and saddles his horse himself. His steed has become accustomed to these furtive pre-dawn departures, or so he assumes; the animal is stoic, and as quiet as Gunther himself. Ten minutes later, the inn is lost behind him; a memory already fading, just one of a string of similar lodgings that have begun to run together in his mind.

* * *

And the woman? Well, she too is simply one more name, one more face, one more warm and willing body, in a long and ultimately meaningless succession.

This one had honey-colored hair, eyes so blue they could almost be called indigo, and a thoroughly unpronounceable name. The names are getting less and less manageable, he finds, the further from home he gets.

Blue eyes are getting rarer, too. He'd liked her eyes. He could as easily have had the inn's other serving girl – she'd fancied him too, he could tell. But that one had a smattering of freckles across her face, and…

And freckles are best avoided. Green eyes and hair the color of flame as well, come to that… but thankfully, as he works his way southeast across the European continent, the majority of the people he encounters are becoming gradually, yet steadily, darker.

The blue-eyed girl is probably a transplant from a different place, like him.

And like the women who came before her (and the women who are sure to come after her) she had been drawn to the brooding, mysterious, foreign knight. They sense something broken deep down inside him, and each of them wants to be the one to fix it, to love him back to wholeness.

They are half right, these pretty girls that he uses and then leaves behind.

He _is_ broken, God yes… but it's not fixable. At least, he doesn't think so.

And so he moves on. He makes his little conquests, stays a night or two – maybe three, but that's quite rare – and then moves on. Always heading south and east; steadily, doggedly away from his starting point. Feeling the leagues mounting up behind like an actual, physical ache in some deep part of him. The pit of his stomach. His bones.

His heart.

* * *

He has no concrete idea of where he is going, because he's not moving toward anything, really; he's simply moving away. He has a vague notion of possibly following this course all the way to the holy land; of turning this entire venture into… well, a pilgrimage of sorts. He finds this faintly ironic, not only because he's committing sin after sin as he goes, but also because he was raised in a distinctly secular household. His father had no use for religion; all of Magnus's zeal was reserved for the frantic acquisition of wealth.

And a good thing too, Gunther supposes. Magnus's wealth is _his_ wealth now, after all, and it's what is funding this… this personal exodus.

At any rate, irony – and the faint shimmer of amusement that accompanies it – seem like reason enough to carry on with this plan, if it can even be called that. Take himself all the way to Jerusalem, sure. Why the hell not?

Maybe that will finally be far enough away. Maybe it will be different enough, exotic enough, _enchanting_ enough, to make him forget what he's left behind.

That's all he wants. Dear God, is it really so much to ask? He would get down on his knees in the dusty road and _beg_ if he thought it would do any good.

He just wants to forget.

But dawn is coming; a degree at a time, it's beginning to lighten the sky. To spread its slow-yet-inexorable stain, first watery-grey and then watery-pink, across the land. This foreign land.

And even though he hates himself a little for doing it, he reins up the horse and turns in his saddle, eyes suddenly riveted on the horizon behind him. The direction of home.

He always looks for her at dawn.

He _knows_ how ridiculous this is. To the core of his being, he knows. First off, she's not coming. And second, even if she _did_ come – what would be the odds that she'd appear right at the break of day? Flying out of the dark, into the sunrise, on her great green beast like something from an epic poem? Some glorious, shining Celtic goddess-queen?

Jane is drama, yes. Jane is unbridled passion. But Jane is not that predictable. Honestly, _dawn?_ No, Jane is not a cliché.

But somehow, for whatever reason, he can't help himself. This is the time that he stops and looks back.

Every.

Single.

Torturous.

Goddamn.

Day.

It is a full minute before he can tear his eyes away and, with a soft cluck to his horse, get moving again.

She'll never come after him. He knows this. He does.

But he'll never stop glancing back, at dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Well, DAMN. I really thought this would be a one-shot. I truly, completely did. And yet, here we are. The story had other ideas! Hope you enjoy - and this gal loves reviews!_

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* * *

They set on him shortly before dawn.

Fortunately for Gunther – and less fortunately for his would-be robbers and murderers – he's been aware that they've been tailing him for quite some time, and so he is ready for them when they come.

* * *

He is travelling through less populated country at present, and has not been able to find an inn for the night. So it is with an air of resignation, knowing that a confrontation is unavoidable, that he makes camp in a clearing just a few yards from the road.

He estimates them being about a half-hour behind him at this point, and sets right to work making preparations. By the time true darkness falls – and well before the outlaws reach his campsite – everything is in place.

Everything, including Gunther himself.

His horse is picketed at the edge of the clearing, a small fire crackles and snaps in its center, and beside it lies Gunther's bedroll… with what appears to be Gunther wrapped cozily inside it.

Appearances can be deceiving, however, and Gunther is actually nestled in a crook of branches about halfway up a large tree, with a commanding view of the clearing below once his eyes have adjusted to the dark; and his sword, dagger, bow and quiver easily at hand.

He hopes against hope that maybe all he'll have to do is keep quiet and watch. That they will come, he has no doubt; but maybe, just _maybe_ they'll lose their nerve and leave again; just melt back into the shadows without actually causing any trouble.

He's tired. He doesn't want to kill anyone.

No such luck, however, and after making him wait virtually all night, they finally screw up their courage and make their move in the darkest hour before dawn.

Even when they come stealing into the clearing below, he waits, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until the bitter end.

 _Just go away. I do not want your deaths on my conscience, just_ leave.

They don't leave.

They advance.

* * *

They don't converge from different directions; they approach the bedroll all together in a clump, causing Gunther, in his leafy perch, to shake his head in disgust. They also make an _appalling_ amount of noise; even if he _had_ been asleep down there, by the ashes of the long-burnt-out fire, he wouldn't have been caught unaware.

Gunther very nearly pities them. And so, still, he holds. He is tired, cold, sore from maintaining the same position for so long, and _pissed_ that they've made him wait practically until the break of day – could not these bumbling fools have at _least_ had the courtesy to get this over with while he still might have caught a few hours of sleep afterward!? But despite all this, despite _everything_ , he holds until the last possible moment; until the half-dozen men below him surround what they assume to be his helpless, slumbering form, and their murderous intent becomes graphically, unmistakably clear.

He sees the dull glint of steel in upraised hands, ready for the anticipated struggle; and then the largest of them draws back his heavily booted foot and lands a brutal kick to what he perceives as being Gunther's midsection. The false Gunther, of course, offers no response whatsoever.

The real Gunther, on the other hand, does.

Only now, with the introduction of actual violence by the men below, does he shift; tense; draw; release. His bow twangs softly three times in barely as many seconds, and half of his would-be assailants drop to the ground as swiftly and silently as puppets whose strings have been cut.

He could have felled the others just as easily, but they are looking around now in such stupefied bewilderment that he simply can't bring himself to do it.

It's like drowning kittens; it's just not sporting.

Besides, it's good to keep up on his hand-to-hand combat skills. It wouldn't do to get rusty.

So he stashes his bow, draws his sword, flexes his limbs, and drops nimbly from the tree… his almost-feral grin flashing in the gloom.

* * *

Dawn breaks grey and chill. It finds him sweat-slick, standing with his back to the rising sun, bandaging the only notable wound he has sustained; a jagged gash to his bicep. It's bloody and painful, but not deep or serious.

His eyes are on the darker horizon, the one opposite the sunrise; the direction of home. His mind, as ever at this time of day, is on Jane.

If she could see him right now, hair hanging in his eyes, using one hand and his teeth to yank the bandages tight, how would she react? _Would_ she react? Would she care?

He could have died tonight. She'll never know that. What if she _did_ know?

 _Would she care?_

If she appeared right at this moment, if she found him here like this…

The corners of his mouth wrench violently downward, and he gives his head a shake to try and clear it; an angry, almost savage gesture. He's nearly as disgusted with himself as he was a short while ago with his unfortunate assailants.

God, when will this end? When, _WHEN_ will he be able to banish her from his mind!?

SHE'S NOT COMING.

 **SHE'S** ** _NEVER_** **COMING**.

He knows this. He does. And he knows something else as well; he doesn't _deserve_ for her to come.

He finishes patching himself up; breaks camp; saddles his horse; moves on. East, always east, into the sunrise, into the new day. Away from home. Away from _Jane._

But he throws one last, lingering look over his shoulder as he goes.

He'll never stop glancing back, at dawn.


	3. Chapter 3

The confrontation comes just before dawn.

He is leading his horse around the side of the building, saddled and ready to go, as he has done dozens of times before on this journey… and suddenly there she is, right in his path, small but formidable, blocking him. They are in a narrow alleyway between the inn and one of its many outbuildings; there is no way around her.

Damn it, _damn_ it. He'd been so sure she was asleep.

And he never should have gotten involved with this one, and what's more, he _knew_ it, too. His every instinct had protested it, _stridently_. But he – glutton for punishment that he is – had gone barreling on ahead anyway.

She is more perceptive, more _possessive_ , and a whole hell of a lot more… generally _volatile_ … than any of the girls who have preceded her. And she is absolutely _radiating_ anger right now, her coal-black eyes sparking with it.

This is not going to be fun.

He braces himself for the explosion. It's really all he can do at this point. Just hunker against the force of it and hopefully let it roll over him until her wrath is spent.

And pray that she doesn't bring every person in a quarter-mile radius down on them.

For a moment, there is silence. It seems that she is waiting for him to speak first, but honestly, what is there for him to _say?_ He's caught. He's not going to insult her intelligence by trying to lie his way out of this. He's not going to offer pointless, lame excuses. It's patently obvious that he is leaving and really, he's known for a long time that this moment had to come eventually – that sooner or later, one of his trysts was bound to discover him making his escape.

But ah God, did it have to be _this_ one?

Finally – "you are leaving," she says, in her own language, which Gunther has been picking up in bits an pieces; enough to be borderline conversational, at any rate. Her voice is dangerously flat.

He attempts to keep his voice neutral as he answers simply, "yes."

" _Why?_ "

He opens his mouth – closes it again – rakes a hand through his hair. Finally he simply says, "it is time."

He has stayed here almost a week already; a cardinal rule broken. He _never_ spends that long in one place. And now he has to answer for it.

She takes a single step toward him, nostrils flaring with fury, and slaps him full across the face.

The force behind that slap is nothing short of stunning. He stumbles, and his horse shies. The next several seconds are a mad rush of swallowed oaths as he struggles to calm his animal, reassert control.

The girl stands as still as statuary, watching through a thin veneer of indifference which does little to disguise the still-boiling rage beneath. Her posture, her expression, the set of her mouth all say that she wouldn't mind seeing his steed trample him right into the _ground_ … but luckily for Gunther, that's not what happens.

He has a strong bond with this horse, and he's able to soothe it fairly quickly. Breathing hard now, fighting to check a rising tide of anger within _himself_ , he locks eyes with the young woman he's spent the last week loving – in the physical sense of the word, at least – and is now increasingly frantic to escape.

He has to struggle to find words. "I… own that," he manages at last. What he means is that he deserved it, the slap, he knows he did; but this is the closest he can come to articulating it. He's still just barely scratched the surface of this language.

She arches an eyebrow. She understands well enough.

"But now I really do have to go," he says quietly.

She hisses through her teeth, like a cat. Takes a step forward and jabs her index finger, hard, into the center of his chest.

"Just walk out on me?" she demands. "Like it was _nothing?_ I could scream, you know. Wake _everyone_. I could scream _rape_. What _then_ , big knight? Hm?!"

He presses his eyes shut; he can feel a monster headache coming on. Scrubs one hand, hard, down his face from forehead to chin, composing himself. He does a quick mental check: sword, dagger, bow. They are all easily accessible.

"Then persons die," he says at length. "Maybe I die. But not me only. Others too. Persons you… you care of. Is that what you want?"

Her lips pull back from her teeth in a snarl… but she doesn't scream. Thank God for that, anyway. He doesn't want an altercation. He only wants to leave.

Then she jabs him again, but higher this time; at the base of his throat. "Give me _that_ ," she says. "Give me that, and you can go."

And his heart freezes.

Automatically, without thinking, he closes his hand around the pendant that hangs there. It's not even a question of giving in to her demand; this is the most – no, the _only_ – truly precious thing he owns, and the only way _anyone_ will get it is by taking it off his cold, dead body.

It's a silver pendant shaped like a key ( _a turnkey, HIS turnkey_ ) but there's more to it than that; it's a cunningly crafted locket as well, concealing a tiny compartment that holds a single lock of hair.

Hair the color of flame, the color of the sun at dawn.

He will never part with it. Never.

The _raven_ -haired beauty in front him, as different from Jane as night is from day, reads his instant, categorical refusal on his face, clenches her fists, and pulls in a quick, deep breath.

 _She is really going to scream_.

"Wait," he says. His hands go to the clasp of the chain. Slowly, haltingly, he releases the catch and takes it off. He removes the pendant and holds the chain out to her. It's solid gold, and it's heavy. It's worth twenty times what the pendant is, if sentiment is removed from the equation. The locket may be priceless to him, but to anyone else it's the chain that holds the real value. He hopes that will be enough for her.

It almost isn't. He can see it in her eyes, the desire to _really_ make him suffer – to insist that he part with the thing that matters most to him in the world, or pay with his life.

But in the end she relents. He's just handed her a small fortune, after all. And besides, he was telling the honest-to-God truth when he said that should she incite violence, he won't go down alone… and she knows it.

Whatever else she is, this girl's not stupid.

Her face twists. She looks like she wants to chew him out roundly, and burst into tears, and _slap_ him again, all at once. But instead she thrusts the gold chain into one of the deep pockets of her skirt, and spits savagely into the dirt at his feet.

"Whoever she is, _wherever_ she is, she must thank God every day that you are gone from her life," she grinds out. "I hope you _never_ find peace, not for a day, not for an _hour!_ Now _get out of here!_ " And she turns and flees around the corner of the building, and is gone.

* * *

He stops a mile or so down the road, to watch the day break.

The pendant is still in his hand, his fist clenched around it so tightly that his knuckles are white; so tightly that its edges are digging into his palm, hurting him. He'll have to find a new chain for it, and soon. He doesn't think he'll be able to draw another deep breath until it's securely around his neck once more. The pendant is more than a memento to him, more even than a talisman. It's his only remaining tangible link to Jane, and as such… it feels like his lifeline, somehow. His _only_ lifeline.

He _cannot_ lose it. He can't.

He's still shaking with reaction, trying to rein in his scattered thoughts with very little success. One thing he's sure of, though; his most recent ex-lover needn't worry about him finding peace. Not for a day, not for an hour. Never. Not without Jane. Her curse is redundant. He was under a life sentence already.

He turns his back on the rising sun and stares homeward.

 _She must thank God every day that you are gone from her life_.

No peace for him, not ever. And he'll never stop glancing back, at dawn.


	4. Chapter 4

The battle is joined shortly before dawn.

It was supposed to happen _at_ daybreak, but apparently someone in authority on the opposing force is less than chivalrous, and decided to use the element of surprise and attack early.

Gunther doesn't think it matters. His own side is better manned, better equipped, and better positioned. Barring some sort of _completely_ unforeseen disaster, they are going to win the day.

Not that he has any emotional stake in the outcome; he doesn't. Several weeks ago he had fallen in with a company of mercenaries, and has been traveling with them since. They are going in more or less the same direction he'd been headed anyway so, when he'd been approached in the common room of a particularly ramshackle inn and an offer had been made, he'd impulsively accepted.

He certainly doesn't need the money, but it doesn't hurt either; why not allow someone else to pay his travel expenses, and save his own coin? And he actually finds the companionship agreeable. There's something to be said for the camp followers who have attached themselves to the group, as well; physical pleasure is a clear-cut business arrangement with them, uncomplicated by emotions or expectations of commitment. It's simple, refreshingly so.

But it does all come at a cost, of course, and the cost is fighting other people's battles. Which is high on the agenda for today.

Well, fighting battles is definitely in his skill-set; he's positively gifted at it, as a matter of fact. So he tries not to think about Sir Ivon and Sir Theodore, and how they'd react if they knew that the promising young knight they'd trained from childhood is now a common sellsword; and just focuses on doing what he does best.

* * *

At first he thinks he's imagining it, the flash of flame-colored hair. The sky is lightening but the sun is still not quite up, and his eyes are playing tricks on him in the half-light, they must be. They _must_ be, because there's no way. Absolutely none.

But he sees it again, a few seconds later; a glimpse of hair the color of burnished copper, and it's ridiculous, it's _impossible_ , he is hundreds upon hundreds of miles from home, fighting in some stranger's land dispute, a local conflict that could not _be_ any more irrelevant to Kippernium or to Jane, and she simply cannot be here.

But his heart is suddenly pounding triple-time, and feels as if it's lodged itself halfway up his throat, nevertheless. Is he hallucinating? Did he take a blow to the head that he's unaware of? Strange things happen in battle. Sometimes it's possible to sustain an injury and not even feel it until later. But one thing he knows for sure; he has to reach that red hair.

Drawn as helplessly, as _frantically_ , as a moth to a flame, he starts moving in that direction; eyes alternately seeking another glimpse of that unmistakable color, and lifting to scan the sky for any sign of Dragon. He dispatches several men as he goes, his body working almost automatically, barely registering them at all.

 _There_ – there it is again, wildly incongruous in this sea of almost entirely dark-haired combatants, and it's close now. Close enough that he can make out at least a little of the person it's attached to.

It _could_ be Jane. It doesn't necessarily follow that it _is_ , of course; but it _could_ be. Slender form clad in dark, padded leather. Short hair, drastically shorter than he remembers, but it's that same insanely vibrant shade, and… would Jane chop her _hair_ off!? He doesn't _think_ so, but can he say with certainty? No, he cannot. Sometimes he's able to make sense of the things she does, but other times…

He realizes, detachedly, that his hand has clenched around the pendant again; the lock of her hair that _he_ carries with him always – and it's really goddam stupid to be holding onto it right now because this is a battle and he needs both his hands for fighting. With a concerted effort, he forces himself to let it go.

He is almost there now, just a few yards away, but he still cannot see ( _her? Is it Jane, can it_ be?) face… and then the unthinkable happens. As he watches, horrorstruck, near enough to see every torturous detail and yet too distant, still, to intervene, a hulking giant of a man grabs the redhead's shoulder, spins ( _her!? Oh God please say no_ ) around, and drives an enormous greatsword directly through that slim body and out the other side.

" ** _NO–!_** " He screams the word with such force that his vision actually darkens around the edges.

He closes the last bit of distance, panicked adrenaline surging through him. The behemoth yanks his obscenely large sword free without sparing Gunther so much as a glance; three others have converged on the huge man and he is suddenly quite busy fending them off.

Gunther leaves them to it; he only has eyes for the redhead who, remarkably, _surreally_ , manages to keep ( _HER!? Do not be Jane, do_ not _be Jane, do not do not DO NOT_ ) feet for several seconds before collapsing to the ground.

Gunther dives, managing to catch the not-Jane – because it cannot be Jane, it MUST NOT be Jane, OH DEAR SWEET GOD IN HEAVEN NO – and soften the impact.

Then he's turning the blood-soaked, pliant body in his arms, unable to swallow, unable to think, unable to _breathe_ until he sees, he sees, _he sees_ …

That it's not Jane.

Oh, God.

Thank you. _THANK_ you.

It's not Jane.

It's a boy, a red-haired hoy, small and wiry of build beneath his thick, padded jerkin, and he doesn't look _nearly_ old enough to be here. Not old enough to be on a battlefield, not old enough to be ripped open and _dying_ , not by _years_.

Shaking with reaction, Gunther eases him the rest of the way down, and he's _still_ having trouble tearing his eyes away from that _hair_ , that beacon-bright hair that is almost exactly like –

Remarkably, the stricken boy raises a hand and manages to fist it in the fabric of Gunther's sleeve.

"What are you _doing_ here!?" Gunther demands harshly, caught between fury and pity and relief. He is staring, at last, directly into the lad's eyes... and they are not Jane's clear green color – a fact for which he is absurdly grateful – but rather a tawny hazel that are rapidly clouding over with pain. With _death_. "You cannot be more than sixteen!"

But the only response the boy gives is to gasp out, "it hurts! It huh…huh… make it stop. Make it stuh…stop. Please… _please_."

It is the only kindness that Gunther is capable of doing for him.

So he makes the hurt stop.

* * *

True dawn finds him crouched beside the body, rocked back on his heels, face buried in his hands, fingers clenched hard in the hair at his temples.

Deep shudders are wracking him as he tries desperately to convince himself that he never _really_ believed it was Jane, no, of course not – it made no _sense_ for it to be Jane, red hair or no red hair; none at all. He hadn't _actually_ thought – not for a second – that he was watching the only person he's _ever loved_ get butchered right in front of his eyes. No, no, no. The very notion is absurd.

Slowly he begins to remaster himself, asserting control once more although he's still deeply shaken, and senses that he will remain so for a good long time.

He raises his head, and that's when he notices that the sun is up. He notices something else, too; a new adversary is almost upon him. If he had looked up even two seconds later...

He throws himself sideways, dodging the man's downward-arcing blow, then launches himself at his assailant, drawing the dagger from his boot in a single, fluid movement as he does so. No sword for _this_ one; he wants to get up close and personal. He's snarling as he closes, as the man stumbles back a step, eyes suddenly going wide; he _needs_ this outlet, is thankful for it.

It's over very quickly.

Breathing heavily in the aftermath, he shoves his hair out of his eyes, takes one last look at the boy's corpse on the ground, then turns his gaze to the horizon opposite the sunrise. He only looks for a couple of heartbeats' worth of time; the battle is still underway and he cannot afford to let his mind wander anymore, not if he intends to survive to see the sun go _down_ again.

But no matter where he is, no matter what's going on around him, he'll _never_ stop glancing back, at dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

_"_ _Gunther."_

 _It's a whisper; barely there. Tantalizing, ethereal. Dancing around the edges of his consciousness, impossible to catch, to pin down. But he knows that voice. He_ loves _that voice. Dear sweet God in heaven, he MISSES that voice, misses it every second of every day, with an intensity so fierce that sometimes he thinks it will burn him up. Sometimes he_ wants _it to burn him up, because then there will be nothing left of him and that will be a relief. To not have to think or feel or_ remember _anymore will be a_ relief _._

 _"_ _Gunther."_

 _But despite everything, when he hears her murmur his name again, his lips quirk up in a slow, sleepy little smile. This is what he's been waiting for, after all. Is she here, is she actually,_ finally _here? He blinks his eyes open, and…_

 _And_ yes _, she's leaning over him; that incredible, untamable mane of hair tumbling over one shoulder like a river of fire. Her lips are curved upward in a half-smile that almost perfectly mirrors his own._

 _"_ _You were drifting away," she says, her voice gently reproachful. "Do not, Gunther. If you drift too far, you will not come back."_

 _"_ _Ja–" he tries to say her name, but breaks off, coughing. His voice is a raw, raspy croak, and his throat aches. In fact,_ all _of him aches. A little furrow appears between her brows, a crease of concern. "Do not drift away," she says again, and even though she's still right there, hovering mere inches above him, her voice sounds distant now, somehow. He has to strain to hear it._

 _A deep sense of unease envelopes him. Only that's not quite right. Unease is not a strong enough word. What he's suddenly feeling is closer to panic._

 _But he can't say her name. He's tried and he can't. So he raises a hand instead, to cup her cheek; her beautiful, familiar, freckled cheek._

 _His hand passes right through her._

 _And then she is… well…_ dispersing _. As he stares up in mute horror, she swirls away like so much mist… and he tries again, frantically, to grab for her, but there is nothing there, nothing_ there _–_

* * *

And he wakes up, heart pounding, coated in a cold, clammy sweat, barely managing to stifle a hoarse, desperate cry, and still _reaching_ … reaching for something that was never actually there at all.

She was a dream, nothing more.

It is a few moments before dawn. He struggles into a sitting position, trying not to groan, groaning anyway. He is wounded and feverish; has been fighting chills the whole night.

He reaches up to push a fall of tangled, sweat-soaked hair out of his face; realizes that his hand is shaking.

He is so weak. So weak and so _thirsty_. But he thinks that maybe, just _maybe_ , the fever is close to breaking.

He hopes so, anyway.

He gropes about the area beside his bedroll for his waterskin, panic beginning to flare in him when his scrabbling fingers fail to locate it right away. Has someone _taken_ it?

But no, here it is. He lifts it to his dry, cracked lips and drinks deep. At the same time, his other hand presses against his bandaged side, cautiously probing the wound there.

Pain explodes through him and he nearly chokes, coughing and sputtering, wasting precious water that runs uselessly down his chin instead of into his parched body.

 _DAMN it._

Angry with himself, he carefully stashes the skin away, conserving what is left, and looks around. The aftermath of another battle meets his still-befuddled gaze.

He is surrounded by other wounded men in various states of physical distress. Some, like him, are awake; either bearing their pain in stoic silence, or whimpering _–_ moaning _–_ even weeping. Others are unconscious. And still more are clearly already dead. He could so easily have been among them. The gash to his side, as bloody and painful as it is, was intended to be something much, much worse. If he hadn't hurled himself sideways in the barest nick of time, he'd have been run through as surely and as thoroughly as that red-haired boy who still sometimes haunts his troubled sleep.

He's even luckier that infection hadn't set in, not really. Not badly. It had certainly tried, hence his elevated temperature as his body works to fight it off. But a couple of his comrades, after bringing him here to the sidelines where the wounded were gathered, had washed the gash out with alcohol _–_ and oh holy hell, had THAT hurt! Pain or no pain, though, he'd been incredibly fortunate. The alcohol had soon run out, and all around him now are men whose wounds have been left to fester. It's over for them. There will be no recovery.

He suddenly feels an overwhelming need to get free of this mass of suffering humanity, to put some distance _–_ however little he can manage _–_ between himself and the dead, the dying. He needs fresh air, and the air here is _anything_ but fresh. Gritting his teeth, he fights his way up onto his knees... and then, somehow, through sheer force of will, to his feet. He sways alarmingly; for a few torturous seconds he's absolutely convinced that he's about to crumple back to the ground and oh God, he can't even imagine the force of the pain that will rip through his side if that happens. His whole body tightens in anticipation; heart racing, breaths piling up.

But he keeps his feet. Almost miraculously, he keeps his feet.

And better still, he can see now that he's actually rather close to the edge of the area where the casualties have been laid out.

 _Casualties like me. I almost died_.

Staggering a little, grimacing _more_ than a little, he picks his way over and around the bodies that litter the ground. He stops a short distance away; he's not _capable_ of going more than a short distance away, and even this modest endeavor has taxed him immensely. But he's escaped the immediacy of all that misery, all that slow, moldering death, and that is good.

There's a sizable boulder here, too, which offers support and a view of the rising sun, and that's even better.

He eases himself down on it, half leaning, half sitting, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. He's feeling slightly better already; even just a few yards away from where he started, the air is dramatically cleaner. He fills his lungs again and realizes a wonderful thing; the fever is definitely breaking. He really does think he's going to be okay.

And that's good, that's _very_ good, because...

 _Because she wants me to live. She_ said _so. She said not to drift away, that is why she_ came...

Of course, the rational side of him knows that this is patently absurd. She _didn't_ come, and she's not going to. She was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, a dream... and if she was an especially vivid dream, well, that's only because she was a _fever_ dream, a... a delirium. And yet... and yet, that delirium has shifted something deep inside of him. When he'd entered this last battle, he honestly hadn't cared very much whether he lived or died. But now he finds that he does, he actually _does_.

And that means he's done waging other people's wars, putting his life on the line for someone else's cause. It's time to part ways with the mercenaries. Just as soon as he's strong enough, it's time to move on; to answer only to himself again, and to keep chasing that eastern horizon.

Even so, in the very next moment he finds himself turning away from the sunrise; staring over his shoulder, homeward. He can't help it. He's powerless against the compulsion.

He's lucky to be alive, and for as long as he _remains_ so, no matter _where_ he goes, he'll never stop glancing back at dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: In stupefied gratitude, I dedicate this chapter to Biscuitweevil for creating the almost-too-amazing-to-be-believed cover art for this fic. HOLY SHIT it's so gorgeous I can't even. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! It is UNFAIR that you write AND draw that incredibly well! But GODDAM what a gift you are to this fandom and ship!_

* * *

It is nearly dawn when he stumbles out of the tavern.

It has been a night of heavy drinking and oh, he is feeling it.

In fact, he's feeling positively wretched… although not as wretched, he suspects, as he _will_ feel in a few hours. Well, physically at any rate. Mentally is another matter, but either way, he wants nothing more at this point than to get back to his lodgings and sleep this off.

Sleep so long and so deeply that maybe he can sleep away any memory that it ever happened.

The night had started well enough – relatively, anyway. _All_ things are relative, of course… and happiness, Gunther has found, is especially so.

Well, actually, happiness doesn't even enter into the equation. Not _true_ happiness; he hasn't felt that since – but he shuts down that line of thought before it can really even get off the ground.

Nope, not going there. No thank you very much.

But he had, in any event, been enjoying himself. And if he'd been getting drunk, well, he'd been getting pleasantly so. He's been here – _lived_ here, if you can call it that (although he's not sure he can in any meaningful sense, when he gets right down to it) – for close to a year now; long enough to have developed certain favorite haunts where he is known and generally welcomed. And this tavern is one of them.

Or at least, it _was_ one of them. After tonight, he's not so sure. It was just such a _shock_ …

He had been playing dice with several acquaintances, engrossed in the game and the friendly wager that accompanied it, eyes on the scarred and pitted wood of the table as he rolled his turn, _laughing_ … he'd been laughing.

And then he had looked up.

Straight into a pair of piercingly, brilliantly, almost _impossibly_ green eyes, regarding him from a short distance away in the crowded room.

* * *

He'd frozen.

Body _and_ mind, he'd just… shut down.

His fellow dicers had called his name in an attempt to return his attention to the game – good-humoredly at first, but then with mounting concern.

It had no effect. All he could hear was a sort of… white rushing in his ears. He'd been completely arrested by that emerald gaze, unable even to draw breath, let alone resume his previous lighthearted activity.

It had been immediately obvious that the girl who'd been looking at him hadn't been Jane. She'd had dark brown hair, long and straight and silky; and olive-complected skin, which made the color of her eyes all the more startling in contrast… and the look she'd been giving him had been friendly; flirtatious, even. A look of assessment, of _inquiry_.

A look designed to both convey her own interest, and gauge the extent to which it might be reciprocated. But the coy little smile that quirked her lips had faded at the sight of the sudden blank panic in Gunther's own grey gaze.

Then he'd been shoving back from the table so hard his chair had toppled over, shaking off the alarmed hand that one of his acquaintances had laid on his shoulder, and stumbling blindly for the door.

He'd had to leave, right then. _Right then_. He'd felt in danger of throwing up, dissolving into tears, and hell, maybe even passing _out_ , all at once. Some of which could be put down to his alcohol intake over the course of the night, but not all of it. Not even most of it.

No, it was mostly a direct result of those _eyes_. Those breathtaking, heart-stopping eyes.

Now that he's outside the cool night air washes over him, returning him at least partially to his senses. He braces his hands on his knees and sucks in several deep breaths. When he straightens up again, the world is no longer tilting quite so alarmingly, but he is still queasy and can feel the beginning of what promises to be a truly miserable headache, building behind his temples.

A few feet away, the tavern door bangs open.

" _Gunther?_ "

It's his dicing partner, come out to check on him. Even in his current, disoriented state, Gunther finds it in himself to be gratified – even a bit touched – by this gesture. Still, he's not going back in there. Wild horses couldn't drag him back through that door, not tonight.

He spins to face his ( _friend? Do I have a friend?_ ) and nearly can't stop himself; the momentum almost carries him in a full circle. He stumbles again, and manages to right himself only with an effort.

"I am all right," he says, although his voice is thick and unsteady. "But I… I think I am done for the night. Here –" he fumbles for his coin pouch and thrusts it into the other man's hand. "Settle up for me, would you? I, uh… I think I need some rest."

It takes slightly more convincing than that, but eventually his compatriot heads back indoors and Gunther is free to start the walk home.

He stops a short distance away to watch the sun rise over the Bosphorus.

* * *

Constantinople is a city so exotic and beautiful that it almost defies belief.

Gunther had been absolutely dumbstruck with awe when he'd first arrived; it had taken him weeks, really, to fully come to terms with his new surroundings. The city is like nothing he had ever seen before, nothing he'd even imagined possible; a fully immersive, almost overwhelming sensory experience. It could swallow Kippernium's castle town whole – probably, he thinks, thirty times over. But the size is just the beginning of what makes the city so frankly astounding.

There are the exotic scents and flavors; foods and drinks and spices he'd never encountered before. The teeming throngs of people; not only the locals, but travelers, like him, from far-flung corners of the world Gunther had never even heard of. Too many languages to count. Too many _belief systems_ to count. And somehow they are all coexisting in this amazing crossroads of a city; mingling, doing business, eating together, drinking together, fighting, loving. _Living_.

And the immense, ornate Byzantine structures - the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, so enormous that he's barely able to process it, and _domed!_ Gunther had never seen such a thing. Standing beneath that massive yet somehow airy dome in open-mouthed astonishment, he'd thought (and still thinks) that all of Kippernia Castle could probably fit inside, with room to spare.

It is intoxicating, all of it.

So he had made the decision that, for a while at least, he could stop moving. That maybe this was actually it; a place so far removed, so drastically, almost _incomprehensibly_ different from home that perhaps, just _perhaps_ , he would finally be able to forget. To let go of the past and live in the now.

And it had been working. It had actually been working _really WELL_...

Until tonight. Until those eyes.

Despite the beauty of the scene laid out before him, Gunther groans. Who did he think he was kidding? He'll never be free. It doesn't matter how far he goes, he could go to the end of the earth and beyond.

He'll never stop missing her.

"Jane."

At first he thinks someone _else_ has spoken her name; he didn't intend to say it aloud, and his voice is so hoarse that it's barely recognizable. But a quick and slightly wild glance about himself confirms that he's alone, and so it _must_ have been him. He says it again.

" _Jane_."

And then he's crying, God in heaven, he's _crying_ \- and he hates it, he _hates_ it, but he can't stop.

He hasn't shed a single tear about the way things ended with Jane, _ever_ \- and maybe that's why he can't help himself now. Maybe he's reached a point of critical mass where he simply can't hold it in anymore. And of course, the alcohol can't be helping. Whatever the reason, he is suddenly sobbing, sagging against the side of a building, needing its support in order to even nominally keep his feet.

In the end, he slides down the rough-hewn rock wall anyway.

Several minutes later, he has wept himself out. He is sitting with his knees drawn up, arms criss-crossed atop them, cradling his aching head. When he finally raises it again, his eyes are distant and glassy, still tear-bright, the color of shimmering quicksilver. The sun is fully up now, although he's sitting in shadow. Slowly, moving almost in a stupor (he's no longer dizzy or nauseous but he is _completely_ wrung out) he gets back to his feet and steps away from the wall, finds a place where he can turn his gaze to the darker horizon.

But she's not coming. And he's tired. So tired of living in the past, always looking over his shoulder. He decides, right in this moment, that he's going to try – he's not at all sure he'll succeed, but he's really going to _try_ – to stop glancing back at dawn.


	7. Chapter 7

He wakes before dawn on his wedding day.

It's an uncommonly seamless transition between the sleeping and waking realms. One moment he's lost in slumber, and the next he's gazing up at his bedroom ceiling, fully alert and surreally calm.

He has none of the jitters that his friends – and yes, now he definitely has friends – have taken great pleasure in describing for him. He is fully at peace with his decision.

Marriage is a part of the natural progression of life, and the logical next step for him. After five years spent making a name for himself, ceaselessly networking and essentially building a small trade empire out of the remnants of his father's wealth, this carefully selected match will help cement his standing in the community even further.

He has actually attained the sort of respectability that would never in a million years have been possible back home – not with the sins of his father hung round his neck like a millstone. Sometimes he can barely believe it, that this is his life, that he is accepted, esteemed; hell, even _liked_.

No one in Kippernium would _ever_ have seen past his family name, not truly, not if he'd lived to be –

 _She would have. She did. You_ know _she d–_

But he shuts that traitorous inner voice down; shuts it down quickly, calmly, and effectively.

It's become remarkably easy to do, over time.

* * *

He throws off the light bedcovers, stands and crosses the room, unshutters the window. The sky is just beginning to lighten, and there's a pleasant breeze coming up from the water. It's going to be a beautiful day.

He folds his arms over his bare chest; leans his head on the sill, both seeing the view and not seeing it at the same time… and lets his mind wander.

He wonders whether there's something wrong with him, that he's not feeling even the least bit panicky. All of his friends are married already, most with multiple children. (Gunther is thirty now, _very_ late to wed – and for the past couple of years, since he's really started to be successful, has been one of the city's most eligible bachelors.) His friends, all of whom have been through this before, have told him how normal it is to have wedding-day nerves, presumably so he wouldn't feel _ab_ normal when it happened.

The unintended result, however, is that now he's feeling abnormal for _not_ having them.

After turning it over in his mind for a few minutes, though, he decides it's nothing to worry about. A couple of his friends married very young; they weren't ready yet, the matches arranged by their families, so nerves would have been natural. Still others are truly, madly, deeply in love with their wives; a state of being that he resolutely tells himself he has never experienced, and never will. Even if a small and usually dormant corner of his mind tries to stir awake and insist otherwise. He frowns faintly, and shuts it down _again_.

And then, lastly, there are his friends who, although they love their children very much, neither love nor even _like_ their wives – and never have. Men who knew their matches were incompatible from the start.

In any case where strong emotions are present – love _or_ the opposite – hell, _especially_ the opposite – some jitters would have to be expected, he concludes.

But he doesn't fall into any of those categories. He's not too young, nor in the grip of any strong emotions when he considers his upcoming union. He doesn't love his bride, but he did select her himself, carefully, and he thinks they'll be compatible. He likes her, and more than that, he _respects_ her. She's a good person.

Despite it being a relatively unorthodox request, he'd insisted on being able to spend time with the girl – heavily chaperoned, of course – before committing to marry her. He'd been able to get away with such a stipulation because he'd been such a sought-after catch. So he feels he knows her character… as well as can be expected pre-nuptially, at any rate.

She has a generally happy disposition. She is kind. She is modest, and devout. She is generous, and concerned with charitable works. In all of these areas, he thinks she will balance him out. Well, he hopes so, at any rate.

But there's more. She's from a good family, obviously; one of the most prominent and powerful in the city. She's intelligent, too. She's thoughtful and informed. Her interests tend more toward intellectual pursuits than the superficial diversions of fashion and beauty.

 _Not_ that she isn't beautiful; she is. _Very_. But it's a natural beauty, uncontrived. And with her dark eyes, thick black hair, and rich olive skin, it's a very different _sort_ of beauty than –

 _Than nothing. No one. Stop it. Just STOP_.

His frown deepens, but only for a few seconds. Then he gives his head a brisk shake, moves away from the window, and starts to dress. Not in his wedding attire, of course; the ceremony isn't for hours. But there are several last-minute arrangements he needs to take care of. He might as well get an early start, as it's going to be a very busy day.

And it's going to be be a good day, a _defining_ day. The incident in the tavern and its aftermath, when he had made the conscious decision to stop looking backward every morning, to stop running and start _living_ , had been one very important defining moment. The day not long after when he'd decided that yes, he was going to make Constantinople his permanent home, was going to stop throwing his father's money away on debauchery, and take what was left and use it to _build_ something for himself, had been another.

And this is going to be yet one more. The most life-altering one yet, no doubt. And he is fully at peace with that.

No, really. He is.

Theodora is a near-perfect choice in every respect. It's a sound match, a _strategic_ match and also, he truly hopes, a match that will bring them both happiness. He does not love her and fosters no illusions of _growing_ to love her; he does not think himself capable of that. Not just where _she_ is concerned, but at all. There is something fundamentally lacking in him, at least since –

 _Since nothing, NOTHING,_ NOTHING.

But that does not mean he cannot treat her well. He already feels affection for her, and that he _does_ believe can deepen over time. And he feels that given her qualities and his own, they will be able to found a very viable and healthy partnership. Which is far more important, for longterm success and satisfaction, than the false, fleeting euphoria of –

 _Of love, Gunther, damn it, you LOVE_ –

Infatuation.

* * *

He leaves his home just as the sun is rising, intending to start the day with a walk along the water's edge. He might as well; none of the tradespeople he needs to see will be ready for business at this early hour. His plans change very quickly though, because right at that moment, around the corner and up his street come several of his friends, bearing food and wine and breaking into happy grins and raucous cries of greeting when they see him. And he has the distinct feeling that his morning just got a whole lot less productive, but that's all right. That's just fine. This is very welcome company.

They reach him, slapping him on the back and shouting their congratulations so boisterously that he's almost certain he's going to have to add " _placate irate neighbors_ " to his already long list of things to do – and then they are bundling him back into his own home for what is certain to be an extraordinarily rowdy breakfast.

But before the sky is lost to him, he twists his head to stare, just for a second, toward the western horizon. The direction of home. It's been a long time – _years_ – since he's done this with any regularity, and yet...

 _And yet, if she were ever going to come,_ this _would be the_ –

NO.

He's not going to go down that route, he refuses. It's pointless and counter-productive. She hasn't come by now, she's never _going_ to, and what's more, he's _known_ that from the start.

 _Let. It. Go_.

He may not love the woman he is marrying today, but he is utterly committed to treating her well and giving her a good life, and that begins now, and it begins with a firm resolution. He's never going to search the horizon for Jane again. Not once a month, or once a year, not once a decade. Not ever.

From this day forward, he's absolutely done glancing back at dawn.


	8. Chapter 8

He is utterly exhausted by dawn.

He thinks he can remember being this tired a handful of other times in his life; at the end of a battle that had dragged on for most of a day... after spending an entire night crouched in the branches of a tree, waiting to ambush the men who'd intended to ambush _him_... tracking a fugitive through the woods of Kippernium with a beautiful red-haired girl beside him, both of them stumbling with fatigue, on the verge of collapse by the end, but each stubbornly pushing on, forcing one foot in front of the other, flatly refusing to be the first to cave, because competitiveness had formed the very core of their relationship with each other.

At least, until it hadn't anymore. Until it had been replaced by something... _so_ much more profound.

But these memories no longer feel entirely real to him.

Those experiences were just so vastly, almost incomprehensibly different from the day-to-day fabric of his current life.

His sword hangs on the wall now, no more than a decoration. He's pretty sure that Theodora _still_ doesn't entirely believe that he was once a knight in a far-off land. And she would never in a million _years_ believe that he'd served a brief stint as a mercenary...

But he doesn't talk about that anyway – _ever_ – so it's moot.

It all feels like such ancient history, though; the good parts and the bad, the things he's proud of and the things he's not. On the rare occasion that he even tries anymore to grasp those old memories, to examine them, they feel more like episodes from an almost-forgotten dream. They run through his fingers, unable to be caught or held, shimmering at the very edges of perception.

So, has he ever been quite this tired before? He thinks so, vaguely. But can he be certain?

No.

Stifling a groan, he sinks into a crouch with his back against the wall, hands dangling between his knees, head bowed. In addition to being tired almost past endurance, he's not accustomed to feeling this helpless, and it's grating on him awfully.

As if to punctuate just how powerless he _is_ in this situation, another shriek rips through the home. His teeth clench in reaction; he hates this, _hates_ this.

Every time she cries out, he wants so desperately to do… _something_ … to help somehow. But there's nothing he can do.

Nothing but wait.

Worse is knowing that he's the one who did this to her; the direct cause of her current pain. The fact that she actually wanted this quite a bit more than he did is very small consolation.

He and Theodora have been trying for a child for three years now, and she has been the driving force behind it – projecting a sense of quietly mounting desperation over the passage of all that time. Gunther, on the other hand, is… apathetic. Not precisely _opposed_ to the idea of childrearing, but definitely not excited.

Oh hell, might as well call it what it is. He's absolutely _terrified_.

His own childhood was a wasteland, loveless and harsh, and the thought that keeps looping through his mind, an endless counterpoint to his wife's agonized cries, is, _I do not know how to_ do _this. What if I turn into my_ father!?

Not to mention that she's been in hard labor, struggling to bring their first child into the world, for over twelve hours now; her once piercing cries turning hoarse as the process drags on… and on… and on.

And so now Gunther has yet something else to fear; the insidious little voice whispering in his head, _what if she does not survive this? What if I have to do it on my_ own!?

Had he really thought he'd known fear before? _This_ is fear so stark, so _huge_ , that he can _taste_ it. It tastes metallic, like blood.

He swallows hard, and is faintly surprised to find that he's swallowing back bile.

That's when the hand falls on his shoulder, and he very nearly screams.

* * *

He jerks his head up, badly startled. He had not heard anyone approach, and that's unlike him. The woman standing there gives him a tired smile.

"You should have gone to a friend's house and slept, Gunther."

He tries to smile back at her, but fails. It turns out to be more of a grimace, really. He rakes both hands through his hair, tips his head back against the wall. "I could have gone all the way to Jerusalem, and I would not have slept," he says. "It is not the... noise... keeping me awake, it is the _not knowing._ "

 _Her_ smile widens then, and she has to be just tired as _he_ is, just as tired at _least_ – but despite everything, she looks positively radiant. "In that case, allow me to ease your mind," she says. "It is over, and all is well. You have a daughter."

He rockets to his feet so fast that he overbalances and stumbles. His mother-in-law catches him by the shoulders, steadying him. She is actually laughing now. "Be careful! I have a daughter and grandchild to look after – the last thing I need is for you injure yourself and make more work for me!"

"Sorry," he manages. "Is Thea –"

"Recovering."

"Can I –"

"Not yet. She is not ready for male company, even you. But I thought you would want to know right away. And I will bring your daughter out to meet you soon, all right?"

"Y-yes," he says numbly. "Yes, I... thank you. _Thank_ you."

* * *

Left to himself again, he wanders the house in a daze. There is plenty of house to wander. His residence cannot quite be called palatial, but it's a close thing.

Even with all that space available for aimless roaming, though, he somehow fetches up in his office; the one place that's more or less exclusively his own, where he conducts most of his business affairs. It's also the place where his sword hangs on display, and where the few other souvenirs of his former life are kept safely tucked away.

He comes back to himself, almost as if emerging from a trance, to discover that he's standing by the room's one window with something small and hard clenched in his fist; a golden chain looped over and around his fingers. He knows what it is, of course, before he even opens his hand to regard it lying on his palm; but he can't for the life of him remember taking it out of the chest in which he's kept it all these years.

Ever since he'd finally forced himself to stop wearing it around his neck, at about the same time he'd resolved to never look back again at dawn.

He stares blankly down at the turnkey locket.

"Jane?"

His voice is a gravelly croak, tone disoriented, questioning; almost as if he's asking her – using the pendant as a sort of proxy – what on earth she's _doing_ here after all this time.

And it's a fair question. The locket was at the _bottom_ of the chest, but he has no memory of digging for it – although now that he glances over, the chest is indeed open and its contents in disarray.

He shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, fingers curling automatically – protectively – around the pendant once more.

God, he needs sleep.

 _What if this child were mine and Jane's? What if_ Jane _were my wife? What if_ –

The questions spring to his mind unbidden, unwelcome, uncontrollable. And excruciatingly painful. He gasps and actually staggers a bit where he stands, it hurts so much to think that way. Hurts too much to allow; shut it down, shut it _down_.

Even so, he risks one more glance at the pendant – but is horrified to see it first double, then triple before his eyes, suddenly shimmering like something not quite of this world.

 _no no no tears dear God NO!_

Moving jerkily, disjointedly, he crosses the room, back over to the chest, to safely secret it away again.

* * *

He has managed to more or less compose himself by the time his mother-in-law finds him, with his daughter in her arms. His hands only shake a little bit as he reaches to take the tiny bundle that she offers him; and the smile on her face says that this must be a perfectly natural and expected reaction for a new father to have.

Then his eyes meet the child's, and the whole world falls away.

Brown eyes, not green, but _bright_ – so bright and alert and drinking him in, and in that moment Gunther finally remembers what it is to feel love, _real_ love, breathtaking in its scope, immense as the sea. He's drowning in those eyes, for a moment he literally cannot breathe. The world shifts beneath his feet; everything is different now, _everything_.

All that he is, all that he does, all that he strives for, accomplishes, builds, suddenly has a new purpose; this amazing, precious life that he's holding cradled against his chest.

From this second on, it's all for her.

"Come here, little one," he says raggedly. "There is something I want you to see."

He takes her to the window and shows her the sunrise, the first of her life.

And if he glances, just for the barest fraction of a second, toward the darker horizon, well, what of that? It means nothing at all; surely not. Everything he needs, everything he'll _ever_ need, is right here in his arms.

It's natural to want to take in the whole vista. It's not as if he's actually glancing back at dawn.


	9. Chapter 9

One of the servants wakes him just before dawn.

Actually, it's not just _any_ servant but his head of household, a man Gunther trusts implicitly and relies on greatly; a calm, level-headed, pragmatic and generally unflappable man.

And right now, he looks as if he's seen a ghost.

Gunther had been deeply asleep, but one look at the man's face and he is instantly alert, ratcheting from dreamless oblivion to borderline panic in barely a heartbeat's worth of time.

"Juliana," he rasps, shooting up into a sitting position, his mind going immediately to his three-year-old daughter. She'd had a fever the week before; quite mild, just a run-of-the-mill childhood illness, although he feels like his insides are literally being shredded any time she is in pain or distress, no matter how minor.

But what if the fever has come back? Worse than before? What if it's _raging?_ Or has she hurt herself somehow? Has someone _else_ hurt her? He will rip them apart. Oh God, what's wrong with his _child?_

"Juliana is well, and sleeping," says the man who has just taken a year off his life, waking him this way.

Gunther produces a sound that is half a groan and half a growl, and rakes a hand through his sleep-tousled hair, caught between aggravation and relief. "Then what in God's _name_ –"

"There is someone to see you."

Gunther simply stares at him for a moment, before shifting his eyes to the window and the barely-lightening sky beyond, then back again, in frank disbelief.

He really is starting to lean toward aggravation.

"I have a visitor _now?_ "

A single nod, and the man still looks deeply rattled, more than Gunther has ever seen him. He shoves the blankets aside, stands, and begins haphazardly throwing on clothes. "I do not suppose you are inclined to tell me _WHO IT IS?_ "

His trusted steward opens his mouth… hesitates… closes it again, and shakes his head. "I think," he says, "you need to see this for yourself."

And still it never even occurs to him. If it had happened even a year or two earlier, he might have realized… but he has distanced himself so thoroughly from his past by now that he has not a single inkling. None.

And so he is completely unprepared as he goes to seek out the cause of this disturbance... although really, he oughtn't to be. The signs could not be any clearer.

It is, after all, dawn.

* * *

...And he can't breathe.

He is utterly poleaxed, and he can't breathe, sweet merciful God, where has the _air_ gone?

He can't _breathe._

"Hello, Gunther," she says quietly – cautiously – but he can't respond. How can he respond when the entire world has suddenly become a vacuum? No air coming in translates to no sound making it out... although _she_ is exempt from such difficulties, apparently.

He feels as if he's going to black out; actually throws out a hand to steady himself against the doorjamb. It's the only movement he seems to be capable of in this moment. Otherwise all he can do is stare.

At the _two_ pairs of brilliant-green eyes staring back at him.

* * *

He can't process this. It's too _much_.

Even Jane, taken by herself, is… almost more than he can bear. Backlit by the growing light, her hair is a corona of fire around her head. She's dressed simply, comfortably, for travel; jerkin and breeches of dark brown leather, thick yet supple, her neck cowled against the early morning chill. Her Dragon Sword is strapped across her back, hilt easily accessible over her shoulder. Booted feet, gloved hands; perfect.

She's perfect.

She's every inch the dragon-rider, every inch the Kippernian knight, and more beautiful than she was when last he saw her twelve years ago. Not less – _more_. It's incomprehensible. Aging is not supposed to work that way. He's sure of it. He cannot make sense of this.

And the thing is, for all of that, it's not even Jane that has shocked his system to the core.

Because there's the _other_ pair of green eyes to consider; not calm and guarded like hers, but as wide and stunned as his own must be. And these belong to an adolescent boy who, in every respect _other_ than eye-color, is the exact spitting image of a younger Gunther.

Small wonder that his steward had looked as if he'd seen a ghost.

His head is spinning. He tightens his grip on the door frame. He really does think he's in danger of falling down.

The boy is dressed similarly to his mother – because that Jane _is_ his mother, there can be no doubt.

Just as there can be no doubt that _he_ is… _he_ is…

 _Going to be sick_.

No. _NO_. Hold it together, for God's sake.

He manages to drag in a hitching breath. It's shallow, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.

"Jane," he says, in a cracked, dazed voice, a voice that holds both wonder and despair. He has no idea what to say next, and before he can figure it out, the boy's eyes shift past him, to some point deeper in the house, and he gasps, stiffens – and then bolts.

Jane tries to lay a restraining hand on his shoulder, but he shakes if off and vanishes. Gunther, for his part, knows what he will see behind him even before he turns his head; Juliana is standing there in her white nightdress, staring at Jane with eyes so huge they seem to eat up her whole face. Seeing that she has her father's attention, she runs to him and wraps both her arms around his nearer leg, burying her face shyly in his thigh.

Gunther throws a quick glance at Jane, and her guard is down; she looks positively stricken in this moment. Then he hunkers down and extricates himself from his daughter, taking her by the shoulders and holding her gently at arm's length.

"That lady is _beautiful_ ," Juliana whispers without preamble.

"Yes," Gunther agrees hoarsely, speaking around a sizable lump in his throat and hoping desperately that Jane is not conversant in this language. "Yes, she is."

"Her hair _glowing_ , papa. Is she an angel?"

"I..." he has to break off and swallow hard.

"She has a _sword_ , papa. Like you!"

"I... see that. Juliana, I want you to go and play quietly in your room for a little while, all right? Papa needs to speak with the... beautiful lady."

His equally beautiful daughter nods acquiescence and, with one more lingering, awestruck, worshipful glance toward Jane, patters obediently away. Gunther straightens up again with his heart twisting inside his chest. Jane has composed herself; her face is smooth and expressionless once more. He opens his mouth to say... well, he doesn't know _what_ to say, and so he just stands there, jaw unhinged, staring at her.

Finally, "Jane," he manages again, his voice a rusty croak. It seems to be the best he can do. Actually, it seems to be _all_ he can do.

She glances over her shoulder for a second, in the direction the boy took when he ran, then locks gazes with him again. "He will be back," she says. "He is just... overwhelmed. I expect he has gone back to Dragon; the two of them are... close. But he will be back, and when he comes, you need to speak with him. You _owe_ him that. Will you do it?"

"I... Jane, I..."

"His name is Roland. He is a squire, since last year. He is... my world. He wants to know you and I would do anything for him, even scour the earth to find you. So you _will_ speak to him when he comes back? He deserves that. Say you will."

"Y-yes. I will speak to him. My God, yes. Jane –"

"If you hurt him, I will kill you." Her face is still expressionless, and her voice is flat. "Understand that. I will _kill_ you, Gunther."

He gives a single, stiff, jerky nod. Words are utterly failing him right now.

She nods back, then relaxes slightly; a tiny bit of tension easing out of her body. "All right. Thank you for agreeing. _I_ will not bother you again, just... be here for _him_ , when he comes back. He is –" now it is _her_ turn to stop and swallow hard. "He is a good boy, Gunther. A good son. I always told him you would be proud of him if –" she breaks off. She is fighting for composure now, he can see it. She raises a hand, as if to run it through her hair, then forces it back down again. "I, uh... I should go," she says, and panic surges through him as she turns away.

" _Jane!_ "

She stops, but turns only halfway back, so now he's looking at her in profile. She won't meet his eyes anymore, and her voice is suspiciously husky as she asks, "what?"

 _I_ LOVE _YOU!_ It almost bursts out of him before he manages to clamp down on it, to reassert some semblance of control. Instead he says, in a voice constricted with anguish, 'I never knew. I... I _swear_ to you, I _never knew!_ "

She does pivot back to him then, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Of _course_ you never knew, Gunther," she replies, as a single rogue teardrop spills over and streaks down her face. "How _could_ you know? You LEFT."

And that's exactly what _she_ does then; she turns away again, and leaves.

* * *

He slides down the wall, ends up sitting on the floor just inside his front door.

His eyes are open, but unfocused; a glazed-over, thousand-yard stare. The sun is rising in earnest now, but he doesn't see it.

He sees hair like a nimbus of flame, an over-the-shoulder sword hilt that makes him literally, physically _ache_ to feel the weight of his own blade in his hands again.

He sees wide, startled green eyes – _her_ eyes – in a face that otherwise could have belonged to _him_ a quarter-century ago.

Suddenly he's pulling for air; pulling for it, _heaving_ for it, unable to get enough, unable to get _any_ , or at least that's how it feels. He wraps both his arms, hard, around his midsection; pulls up his legs and leans into them, forehead dropping to knees, as if trying to hold himself together by force. This hurts so much he's not sure he can survive it.

It hurts so much, he's not sure he _wants_ to.

Jane is here, _here_ , in his city, in his _neighborhood_ , so close that if he runs after her he can almost certainly catch her – and every single fiber of his being is _screaming_ at him to do just that.

 _And yet_.

And yet the wife he does not love, but is fond of and committed to, is sleeping peacefully upstairs.

And yet the daughter he _does_ love, loves more than his own soul, is playing quietly in her room.

And he cannot leave them.

Every other part of this life he's built, he could walk away from... walk away from _easily_ , without a second thought, for even the slightest, most minuscule chance of possibly reclaiming Jane. All the wealth, the material trappings, the connections, the social standing, everything he's worked for, everything he's built, he'd throw it to the winds in a second if it meant even a one-in-ten-thousand shot at winning her back.

But Theodora and Juliana... he cannot set them aside.

He screams into his updrawn knees; a ragged, hoarse, agonized sound.

Then he leans back against the wall, still hugging himself as tightly as he can, and waits.

Waits for the son he never knew he had to come back so that they can meet properly.

Waits for his life to go on.

And tries to keep breathing.

He shuts his eyes against the dawn.

* * *

~~~End~~~

* * *

 _A/N: I iz having the sadz. Quick, someone, for the love of God, write some sugar-sweet, happily-ever-after J/G fluff, PLEEZ! I'm no good at that stuff but Sweet Jesus, I need a dose of it right now! This story is complete, such as it is... please review!_


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